Celebrating the Small Things

Here we are at another Friday, which means it's once again time for another Celebrate the Small Things hop. This fun weekly hop is hosted by my buddy Lexa Cain and co-hosted by L.G Keltner at Writing Off the Edge, Tonja Drecker at Kidbits, and Katie at The Cyborg Mom. Visit Lexa's blog here to find out how join in the hop yourself and to see the list of participants.

There wasn't much going on here this week, but I'm celebrating that I have a three day weekend ahead. The college where I work is closed today so I am off for three days. Always something to celebrate, right?

I'm also celebrating the return of The Walking Dead! I love this show and was so anxious for it to return for the second half of its 6th season. The premiere episode didn't disappoint! It was shocking and scary and so tense I thought I would have a heart attack more than once. In other words, it was everything I love about TWD. My Sunday nights are once again complete. :D

Finally, I'm celebrating that I'm heading up to Columbus, Ohio tomorrow for a meeting with a writing group I belong to, the regional chapter of Sisters in Crime. I always enjoy these meetings and feel fortunate to belong to such a great group. Plus the weather is supposed to be beautiful so it should be a nice day for a drive. I actually like driving when the weather is nice and I'm not fighting traffic so I'm looking forward to the trip.

I hope everyone had a week filled with lots of things to celebrate, and has a great weekend coming up.

A 99 Cents Sale & Changing Things Up

All of my books, including the just released Polar Day, are on sale for 99 cents this week on Amazon Kindle. You can find a link to each book, as well as the other Ink Smith books on sale, at the Amazon sale page here. If you're interested in any of my books now is a great time to check them out. :)

Also, it's no secret that I've been in a major slump and haven't been able to get any writing accomplished in months. I seem to just be constantly distracted by various things in my life and I can't focus.

So I thought instead of continually beating my head against this wall I've found myself at I'd try focusing on some different kinds of writing for a while and see if that can help me get some motivation back.

To that end, I signed up to help with the Be the Change for Animals site and write for their action alert newsletter. I thought this would be a good way for me to get back to writing about one of my original interests while also learning about causes I can write about in more depth either here on my blog or elsewhere. I'm excited to get started with the project.

I also went to a meeting last weekend of the regional chapter of Sisters in Crime and I really enjoyed it. The chapter is small and they are looking for help with writing content for their blog and website, something I said I would be glad to try. It will be a totally new experience for me to work with something like this and I'm looking forward to trying my hand at it.

So I'm hoping that trying some new things will help jump start my writing and I can get back to enjoying writing and blogging again. I also hope to take Clancy on some little day trips now that the weather seems to have finally turned a corner, as I would love to go back to the Travels With Clancy posts I used to do. I don't know how much Clancy will enjoy more trips but I know I will. I have a feeling he won't like the idea at all.

I think I got it in my head that I had to write another book immediately and when I couldn't do that I simply became discouraged and couldn't focus on writing anything at all. I realize though that I was being silly and it would make more sense to enjoy what I do have instead of worrying about what I'm going to do next. I have several book signings and conferences coming up this year and, unlike last year when I was a nervous wreck about them, I'm actually excited for them now and don't feel nervous about the panels at all. So I want to focus on enjoying those events and stop beating myself up about needing a little break from fiction writing.

But speaking of fiction writing, stop by the Untethered Realms blog tomorrow for a group post about the movies or television shows that have inspired us as writers. My entry is about a certain high school girl who battled vampires.

I hope you all enjoyed the weekend and have a great week coming up! If anyone is willing to tweet or share about my 99 cents sale I'd be very grateful!